


Toska

by pieandsouffles



Series: your life as a weapon [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dark, Dehumanization, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, bucky is fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:16:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieandsouffles/pseuds/pieandsouffles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are twenty-five when you kill your first man.<br/>You are broken.  You are a weapon.<br/>You have two arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toska

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thegreenlanternslight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thegreenlanternslight/gifts).



> happy birthday, marcus! 
> 
> also this is really fucking weird and I might write more at some point bc I'm not really sure what this ended up being, except that it made me have emotions

You are seven when - 

No.  That’s not right.  

#

You become a weapon when you are twenty-five.  

Point, pull, shoot.  You know the metal of a knife underneath your palm, as if you have always known it.

(That’s not right, either.)

#

You are sixteen when you know you are broken.  You watch him cross a room, slight frame and careful steps, and something rends inside of you.

It won’t ever heal. 

#

You were not born a weapon. 

Had you been anyone but an immigrant’s son from Brooklyn, perhaps - perhaps - 

(It did not have to be this way.)

You think you might have been a weapon all along. 

#

You do not know how old you are when you forget his name.  

You do not know how old you are when you almost kill him. 

(fists moving, _crunch_ wind _crunch_ , blood matches the brand on your shoulder, silver bathed in death, and you do not know him, you do not know him - 

but I knew him - 

I knew him.)

#

You are eleven when your mother tells you that he’s changed you, and not for the better.  

A neighbor says you could find good friends, if he let you be.  

You are eleven, and you do not listen.  

#

You are twenty-five when you enlist, and his eyes shine with pride that could put your dead mother to shame.  You do not wish he could fight by your side, because he is important.  He is - 

#

You are seven when he first asks you to -

No.  That isn’t right, either. 

#

When you are eight, he tells you the story of Icarus.  A boy and his father escape an island by making wings and flying, he says, but Icarus wants to fly towards the sun, even though his father told him he couldn’t.  Icarus flies too high and the wax on his wings melts off.  He falls to the ocean.  He dies.  You do not know what the story means, just that you like the sound of his voice, as you lie together on the couch cushions, piled on the floor.  

#

You are old, so old, when you watch him fall.  

You are old, and you are twenty-seven, and you are falling through snow and icy wind, past cragged rocks.  They pull you from the cold, and you wonder if his muscles felt like yours, as they thawed.  Over and over and over, _put him on ice_ , the pain wrenches your marrow, and you wonder if he felt it, too - what you endured.

(He did not lose his arm to a bone saw.) 

#

You escape a mission in the sixties, and you board a bus for New York city.  You do not know why it is important that you go there; your extraction point was one city over.  You escape, and you go to Brooklyn, and you wander.  They catch up to you on the second day, as you are resting, crouched in the corner of a room, knife in your hand.  They ask you why you came to New York, and you do not know.  You think you came here because there was a mission that you had to complete, though you cannot remember what it was.  

(They say that you have never been to Brooklyn.  You do not believe them.) 

#

You do not miss him - you do not know what that is like.  To miss.  You long - for a small body creeping across a wooden floor to a sketchbook by a water-stained window.  The city smells different now, but still you see his fingers moving over the latches, like two photographs taken on the same piece of film.  

Double exposure.  That is what it is called.  

#

Some days, you remember.  On others you crouch in a corner with a knife in your hand and watch the shadows play across the walls.  You flip the knife; it is a businessman’s pen in your hands.  On these days, you do not think of him, but he does not leave you.  He is a shadow in the room, his hands around your throat, although you cannot remember their texture.  

You wish you could feel them again.  

(You do not know what that is like.  To wish.) 

#

You are twenty-seven when you die. 

#

Your ninth grade teacher tells you that, were it not for him, you could do great things.  

You are not worthy to stand in his shadow; his darkness is brighter than your light.  

#

You aim.  You shoot.  You shoot.  Blood blooms over red and white stripes, canvas punctured, one, two, three.  You shoot, but your hand does not let you make his head.  You will fail your mission, and you wonder why you care.  

#

You are twenty-six when he asks you to kill for him.  Just a boy from Brooklyn.  You could never refuse him anything. 

For him, you would kill an army with your bare hands.  For him, you would kill an army with just your set of knives.  

(You would return to him, and you would have become blood.  If he asked it of you, you would.)  

#

They take you and they twist you.  Rip out your socket while you’re still breathing.  They take you and make you forget.  They take you and make you a weapon.

No, that’s not right.  

#

You are seven, and you learn how to use your fists.  

You are twenty-five, and you learn how to use a gun.  

You are old, and you know both like breathing

(but you do not know his face). 

#

You look at the man that is you, but not you, and you cannot trust it.  You trust the one with golden hair and sea-glass eyes, but his shoulders are too broad and his hands are too large.  You remember his bird-like bones under your palms, and you feel an ache begin deep within your chest. 

#

You knew him.  You knew him.  

#

You are given a mission - and another, and another.  You need a mission.  You have always needed one.  

(You have always had one.)

#

You have forgotten how to sleep.  

They put you on ice, put you on ice, and you do not think, 

(Wipe him, wipe him, again, again)

You do not know beyond the closing and the opening.  

Now, when you sleep, you dream.  You are on a table and they are prodding at your skin and you are repeating, repeating - you are on a beach and there is sand between your toes and when you look at the horizon he is there, and he is smiling - you are in a forest and you are cold until an arm winds around your shoulders - you are falling, falling, and you are looking up at him as you go.  

(His name is your last breath.  It is as it should be.)

#

You are twenty-five when you become a weapon.  

No, that’s not right. 

#

“The only Commando to give his life in service to his country.”

No, that’s not right, either. 

You were pulled, not from ash, but from crystal.  You were made metal and you feel it in your blood, like a toxin, a sharp bite at the teeth.  If there was a time, before, you do not remember it now, so perhaps the exhibit is right.  They took him from you.  They took everything from you.  

#

You are twenty-seven when you fall, and you do not die.  They do not make you a weapon.  You already were one.  

#

You are fourteen when they tell you that he will lead you astray.  He walks with you back from school, leaves crunching under your feet.  It is October, and it is cold, and he is shivering, so you give him your hat and scarf.  When he will not take them, you shove them on his head.  

(You think you were already on the wrong path.)

#

You come back slowly.  You remember his wrists, pigeons at Coney Island.  The taste of hot dogs, of bitter boiled coffee served in tins.  The sea breeze and how pine needles smelled in France.  A gurney and leather straps, needles and pain and _James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant_ , but you have forgotten your serial number.  They did not list that at the exhibit.  You remember a face and cruel hands, cruel hands that made you what you are.  

(Did they?)

You remember missions.  Targets.  Extractions.  Blood on the walls and the floor and your hands.  Gunpowder taste on your tongue.  How the sun felt on your bare back.  

#

You are seven, and you learn how to use your fists.  It is not something you will forget - it is not something you can.  It can only be perfected, until your knuckles do not bleed, but mangle circuitry.  Short out wires that reach up your spine.

#

“What do you remember?” 

#

There is a politician in Moscow, one in Texas.  Two shots.  Two kills, and they are proud of you.  It hurts less, those nights - a successful mission means less pain.  It is simple, easy, like algebra.  (No missions means the ice.  No missions means a rubber shock guard and a raw throat and agony.  They push on your scar tissue and you scream.)

#

You are twenty-five when you kill your first man.  

You are broken.  You are a weapon.  

You have two arms.  

#

They give you a mission.  They give you a mission.  They give you a mission.  (Do you not already have one?) 

You complete them, methodically, like clockwork.  They mean freedom, they mean calm.  You always feel calm when you are killing. 

#

“Everything.” 

#

You guard his precious bones, clean the blood from his knees and his gold-spun hair.  You hold his wrists in your hands, and his pulse is your own.  You wait for the pause in between beats, squeeze.  

No, that’s not right. 

#

There is a job at the docks and you take it because he wants to go to art school and you will be with him until the end of the line.  You take a job at the docks and you make some extra money behind the shipping containers and you pray to a god that’s condemned you that he won’t ever know.  He is whole, and you are broken, and you cannot hurt him.  You never could.  

#

You are old, and you return to him, because that is what you’ve always done.  It is what you will always do, because he is the sun, and you are a satellite.  You cannot help but fly closer, though your wings may melt.  

#

You are twenty-seven, and you fight for him, because he carries a shield but you are his gun, his weapon.  You point, pause, pull.  You watch a man fall dead and you salute him because you have kept him safe.  That is your job - that much has not changed.    

#

“Buck, come home.” 

#

You are a weapon, and weapons must have a purpose.  It is in their definition.

You wonder if you could be something else.  If you ever were, before.  

#

“What is my mission?” 

He looks at you like he does not know you.  You think he might be right.  

“You’re safe now, Buck - you don’t need one, anymore.  HYDRA’s gone.”

#

You are seven when you become a weapon.  

You are sixteen when he breaks you, and you cannot break him back.  You are old, and you have killed so many for so long that it is all you know.  You look in his eyes and the ache builds - you long. 

#

“I have always had a mission,” you say, because it’s true.  

“You’re not their weapon anymore, Buck.”

#

You kill twenty-eight men for him in Austria on a night raid.  You have killed more than you have lived years.  

He sidles up to you as you lie huddled next to the dim fire, and wraps his arms around you.  Your shivering stops.  You sleep well that night.

#

“No.  But I’m yours.  I was always yours.” 

You remember his slender frame, his fragile bones.  You worry you will break him now, as you did then.  As you will always do, because that is your job, your definition.  You destroy.  

# 

You are twenty-seven and he is no longer thin.  He carries a shield and does not belong to you, but to the nation.  

(You had him first.)

#

“I can’t give you a mission, I’m not - I’m not HYDRA, not Pierce.” You wince at the name.  “I won’t use you like that.” 

#

He does not need your fists anymore, so you offer him your gun.  

(You think you have always belonged to him.)

#

You are twenty-seven, and you fall.  You are twenty-seven, and you die.  You are twenty-seven, and you have been for a long time. 

#

“You’ve always used me like that.” 

#

When you are twenty-two, he splits you open, and you know you are broken beyond repair.  Nothing could ever fix the harm his hands wrought on you. 

#

You are old, and you remember the way he felt underneath you on the shaky bed, his soft words whispered against your skin, like a covenant.  Like a prayer.  

(Bless me, Father, for I have-) 

#

“Buck, don’t say that.  They didn’t-”

#

You go to church and the priest tells you to confess.  You are seventeen when he says that you’re condemned, because you cannot stop loving him.  You have always been a sinner. 

#

“Love me?”

#

You are twenty-two when Steve Rogers takes you apart, but he doesn’t bother stitching you back together.  When you fall, you wonder if the priest was right, and if the hellfire is worth the shattering of your soul.    

When he falls, you wonder why you care. 

#

Steve blinks.  “Come home with me, Bucky.” 

#

They tell you that you have no name, but you do not believe them.  You have one, although it is not your own.  

They take Steve Rogers from your mind - his face, his laugh, his smile.  How his lips felt underneath yours.    

#

You kneel before a crucifix in a pool of stained glass light.  You ask Him for a mission. 

#

“I’m broken, Steve.” 

#

When you are seven, you pull Steve Rogers from a fight; you learn your fists and their meaning.

He has always been yours. 

No, that’s not right. 

#

“So am I, Buck.” 

You take his hand.

#

You have always been his. 

**Author's Note:**

> kudos/comments or "keira write more"s keep me going at night come cry with me at pieandsouffles on tumblr :)
> 
> UDPATE: yeah im writing a companion piece to this that will be published eventually so what so i dont have a life yeah thats right
> 
> UPDATE UPDATE: as promised, there is another part to this piece that is now part of this fuckign series. im literal fucking trash it only took me like nine months to write a fucking sequel just goddamn girl get your fucking shit together

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7672636) by [AsterRoc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsterRoc/pseuds/AsterRoc)




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